Swung by a store yesterday and saw that the Lumia 822 was now free with a contract (no rebate at all) and the 8X is now $100 after rebate. Confirmed by checking the VZW website.

This either means sales are poor and they are pricing the phones more competitively, they are trying to offer Windows Phones in the same pricing category as the iPhone 4 and 4S, or Verizon is getting serious and wants to sell a massive quantity of WP8 devices. In retail stores the iPhone 4 and the Lumia 822 are the only phones that are free out the door. This is a big deal in my eyes.

They're not selling well. Three CDMA devices which cannot be used to their full potential because of coding and encryption is what is causing Verizon to sell them cheaper.

I know several people who work at corporate owned Verizon stores, and they have told me more than half of their first shipment of WP8 devices are still on stock. They have sold units, but not as they expected. As a matter of fact, Verizon may be thinking twice about carrying more WP8 devices until the CDMA coding and encryption is up to par, as Sprint and the rest of the CDMA carriers decided to do.

If Microsoft was expecting CDMA carriers to look foolish for not carrying devices coded for China carriers and not up to Qualcomm Current standards, they have gotten egged on their faces by the atrocious sales figures. Team Windows Phone may be saying "Damn you, Sprint! You were not kidding about the coding and encryption."

Three CDMA devices which cannot be used to their full potential because of coding and encryption...Verizon may be thinking twice about carrying more WP8 devices until the CDMA coding and encryption is up to par...

It has to do with security, and especially SVDO functionality to it's full potential (SVDO needs 1x Advanced and EVDO Revision B along the extra radio needed on the CDMA device installed in order to have SVDO work on 3G and 4G, compared to being limited to 1X advance when only using 256bit encryption). That is the main issue Sprint, US Cellular, the CDMA based regional post paid carriers, and most of the prepaid carriers (including the MVNOs of Sprint, Verizon, and US Cellular) have addressed to Microsoft beside the lackluster sales of WP7 and the lack of true support to CDMA carriers in the US, as well as being limited to two devices made by HTC for WP7. Even the FCC on 2011 made it clear to Microsoft that their encoding and encryption for GSM and especially CDMA carriers is NOT going to be adequate beyond 2012 (the same thing Google was told on that hearing, and Google addressed it quickly. Apple and RIM are way ahead of the curve on the network encryption and coding of the cell technologies used in the US).

Cashcar, for those in the CDMA world of cell phone carriers in the US (especially when using their devices as major tools for doing business), coding and encryption are a must. Have in mind high tech companies tend to choose CDMA carriers over GSM carriers here in the states (preferably, they get true global devices in case they have to send personnel overseas) because of better protection of devices when reported lost/stolen (one of the things a GSM phone cannot provide at this point).

So yes, coding and encryption are very important, and why for business use companies use CDMA based blackberry and iOS devices over android and Windows Phone. Windows Phone has a big potential to be a serious business phone, but will not be touched by major companies (especially in electronics manufacturing) because they need to secure devices in case of loss/theft, and CDMA does that centuries ahead of GSM counterparts. That alone is a major reason why Microsoft needs to US current Qualcomm Standards as required by all US carriers in terms of coding and encryption while on a CDMA 2000 based network like Verizon, Sprint, and US Cellular just to mention a few.